


When You Saw Me

by inkedinserendipity



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, just fluff straight through, post-159 fluff, round two of "eye powers used to demonstrate love"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22645186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkedinserendipity/pseuds/inkedinserendipity
Summary: These are the little things that he Knows about Jon, and all the little ways Jon learns about him in return; stubborn, tenacious, and full of love. Just as Martin Saw him on the beach.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 19
Kudos: 270





	When You Saw Me

**Author's Note:**

> Me, back up on my podium, continuing my essay about how Jon would use his powers of a fear god to demonstrate his love for Martin: no hear me out, he would use his powers not only to demonstrate his own love but all of himself as well. And _then_ he would learn everything he could about Martin, because that's who he is he's curious by nature, and he would take joy in learning all these little things and never letting them go. And they're in Scotland, and they're in love. In the next part of this essay I will -
> 
> (Also cross-posted from [tumblr](http://inkedinserendipity.tumblr.com)!)

“When you saw me,” Jon says, one hand playing idly with the collar of Martin’s shirt, “what did you see?” 

Martin sets aside his pocketbook. Clicks his pen once, twice, absently. The fresh page is full; that’s new. Before Scotland, months passed without him committing a single word to paper. He laughs. “Me.”

Jon smiles at that, a soft and fluttering little thing that puts creases by his eyes. He has such lovely eyes. Green eyes, and a gaze that gentles for him. “That makes sense,” Jon says, quietly amused. “I was looking at you. I was rather worried about you, you know.”

That warms something in Martin’s chest. “No, no that,” Martin says, around the sudden thick swell in his throat. He clears it, to no avail. “I mean, you were looking at me, yes. But mostly I saw - me? As you saw me, I mean, not just with your eyes. All of me. A little stumbling and, you know, incurably romantic, but also....”

Martin trails off. It’s hard to put in words, even to Jon, who’s never seen anyone as completely as Martin saw him. 

(Because there is something to be said for a complete, intimate knowing of a person, the knowledge freely given; and after all they have been through, after all they have both sacrificed for the other, Jon has nothing to hide. Not from Martin.)

(It is a gift that Martin treasures.)

Martin shrugs a little. Jostles the long sleeve of Jon’s sweater as he does. Jon’s fingers are twined loose over Martin’s skin, the second knuckles resting gently against the hollow of Martin’s neck. Jon’s cheek is pressed to his sternum, and he is warm. “You really wanted to find me,” Martin says, meaning the words to be light. They are not. “In there. In that place. You - it was the only thing you were thinking about. Not Jonah, not Peter, just...me.”

“Of course,” Jon says, voice cracking. “You know that.”

“I do.” Martin sets his pocketbook aside, runs the pads of his fingers through the hair by Jon’s temple, thinking. “It’s hard to explain. I don’t know if you meant to, I think you could’ve, but...you didn’t hide anything, Jon. And I was what you were thinking of, so I was actually the first thing I saw.” Martin huffs out a little laugh. He’d been so surprised to See Jon, only to see his own face first; to see himself as Jon saw him, to see himself as Jon loved him. It overwhelms him even now, and he has to split off, to take a deep breath, wipe his eyes. 

“I suppose that makes sense,” Jon says, breath brushing against Martin’s collarbone. “You were all I wanted to see. I - I had to find you, Martin. You know that.”

He does. Of course he does. “’s actually how I ended back up in my body. Sorta forgot I even had one, and then I saw me as _you_ saw me, and....” he trails off. He knows Jon is flushed not from the color in his cheeks - they’re too dark - but from the spot of warmth burning against Martin’s sternum. Martin smiles. “The Lonely doesn’t stand up well to that sort of love.”

The heat from Jon’s cheeks rises. He’s never said it, not in so many words, but that is the point of seeing, and being so utterly seen; he’s never needed to. 

“That was all I sifted through in the moment,” Martin murmurs thoughtfully, still tracing light semicircles against the thin skin of Jon’s temple. “But a lot - well, it sort of came back to me later. You and Daisy and the coffin. Basira, the man on the boat, and Georgie and the admiral, Melanie and the awl.... I missed a lot.” 

“It’s not your fault, Martin.”

Martin huffs a quiet laugh at that, too, at the protective insistence in Jon’s voice. He knows. He _knows_. “You care so much,” Martin murmurs. “Thank you, Jon. For letting me see that. For letting me see - you.”

Jon picks up his head, careful not to dislodge Martin’s hand. His gaze is intent. It is heady, being pinned by that gaze, and Martin finds that he cannot look away, and that he does not want to. When Jon speaks, his words have the weight of absolute truth. “I have nothing to hide from you, Martin.” 

It’s midafternoon in Scotland, one of the rare cloudless days that graces their early mornings with blue skies. These are the days Jon will shake Martin’s shoulder gently, ridiculously early as he wakes up, and together, they watch the sunrise. Now the sun slants shallow through the kitchen’s window, gracing the curls of Jon’s hair, and, impossibly, softens him further. 

“I know,” Martin says, and there are a hundred other thoughts contained, there, three-words and sentence-fragments and poems, poems that he’s never quite been able to pen in full (though he’s getting there, he’s getting closer every day), but he doesn’t find he needs to say any of them. He leans forward to brush his lips to Jon’s forehead. When he leans back, Jon’s eyes are closed, content. “I know.” 

* * *

This is how Martin takes his tea:

In the mug that Daisy bought from the north of wales, a simple white thing with a chip in the handle, decorated around the sides with three slashes of verdant cliff - the rock and earth covered in all sort of stubborn and curling greenery, a tenacity and life that Martin admires; steam drifting up from the edges, perceptible only when he’s looking for it, just above room temperature; a chamomile brew, but a particular kind, infused with a little bit of cinnamon; no milk, and two sugars. 

Martin knows how Jon takes his tea, of course. It is one of the details in Seeing that Martin keeps for his own, freely given and precious; and it is not surprising, was not even in the Lonely, that Jon’s only criteria for good tea is _made by Martin Blackwood_.

There was no such Knowing involved in the tea that Martin drinks every morning. There was only some trial, and some error, and questions devoid of compulsion. Only a fond curl to Martin’s lips as he’d said, _a little cinnamon, no milk, two sugars_ , and watched Jon piece together the rest for himself. 

There is an intimacy in such knowledge, and Jon hoards all of it. A pride in his voice, when he wakes Martin with a touch to the shoulder and a palm to the cheek and a murmured word, and he hands Martin a mug of tea that only steams when he peers at it close through the weak light of morning; and the ceramic never scalds, only seeping comfortable warmth wherever it touches his hands.

* * *

Jon never listened to much music. Never bothered with the radio when there were books to be read. When given the choice, he plays classical; likes Beethoven and Mozart, Martin Knows, and has since he was very young. But there is a part of him that Jon has shared with very few that likes the thought of a record player, the physical touch-and-scratch of a needle to vinyl. Jon had never been able to justify the investment, though, so for most of his life it had remained a vague formless thought lingering at the back of his mind.

Jon doesn’t bring it up, of course. It is such an intangible little thing. Martin wouldn’t be surprised if Jon himself had forgotten it was something he once would have loved.

(Those are the sorts of things Jon typically tucks away and leaves to dust. He used to love moths, too, when he was quite young indeed; used to love the graceful curl of calligraphy, used to love the patter of driving rain on a windowpane, paired with a cup of too-sweet hot chocolate.

It has been a long time since Jon has thought on any of these small things he used to love. Nowadays he focuses on the bigger things. Focuses, almost exclusively, on Martin.

It is a habit Martin is trying to break him of, with little avail; Jon should pay mind to his own happiness too. Ridiculous man that he is, he cares so much more for Martin’s.)

There is an antiques shop in the village closest to their cottage, and the owner is a lovely Pakistani woman whose hair coils like Jon’s, whose smile is warm to match his, so one day before returning home Martin sets the bags of produce out on the wooden porch and steps inside, a little bell tinkling over his head as he does. 

Martin spends half the time perusing, aimless, and only remembers Jon’s unsourced fondness for record players when he finds one tucked in the corner of the shop; goes still, eyes unfocused, for a moment unable to place where this strange well of affection that is not his had risen from, in a place he is not familiar with. It takes him a moment to place it as - not his, but Jon’s, a little piece of Knowledge that had come with his Sight. 

The other half of the time he spends bargaining, which, for him, means more conversing than actual haggling. He tells the shopkeep about Jon, about his work ethic and his reluctance to put effort toward his own happiness and his dogged persistence in fighting tooth and nail for Martin’s; about his cooking - which Martin had Known would be good but had surprised him, all the same, for how delicious it was - about his habit of sleeping with his limbs all akimbo, and the handful of times Martin has caught him humming in a voice so deep and smooth that Martin’s own ribcage had trembled and caught it there, warm and soft. 

She gives it to him, not for free, but near it. Pats him on the cheek when he leaves and tells him to take good care of Jon, and Martin smiles, and promises that he will.

* * *

Some days, the windows are closed when Martin wakes up.

This is not unusual. It is foggy often in this part of Scotland, even though they are so far from the sea. And whenever there is fog outside, the windows are closed.

(Martin does not know if the rolling front of fog is something that Jon watches through his god, or if somehow he has enough reception to consult the weather; he is sure that Jon is not asking the locals, because Jon has never met the locals, for his own fear that he will wrest a statement from their unwilling throats. But every day, without fail, there is either sun or closed windows, and there is always warmth enough in their cottage to make up for drawn shutters.)

* * *

Jon had used to love sweet things with an abandon that surprises Martin. One day Martin returns from the shop with a chocolate egg, one of the over-sugared ones made for children. Jon laughs when Martin gives it to him, and opens it and takes a little bite, and keeps laughing until there are tears rolling down his cheeks. 

There is something sweet, too, in the way that he clings to Martin just as desperately as Martin holds him.

* * *

It is an interest Martin mentions in passing, the cows. Talks once about how soft they are, how he’d once touched a scarf made from their wool and longed after it ever since. He doesn’t think much on it again until he finds Jon curled up on their little couch, toes warming before the fire, reading not his preferred tomes on the migration of monarchs or, more recently, a mystery novel, but a thin guidebook on Highland cows, complete with - here, Martin cannot help but laugh - pictures.

There is indignation on Jon’s face when he turns around, book held to his chest like a shield. But Martin’s laugh is fond when he nudges Jon’s shoulder, and peters off to a warm timber when he wraps his arms around Jon’s waist and buries his face in Jon’s shoulder. 

One time, Martin had mentioned his fondness for these animals, and here he finds Jon reading a book on them.

“I love you,” Martin says, laughing still, and this time Jon does not freeze at the words, not as he used to.

Instead he relaxes all at once, marking his place in the book with one finger. Leans his head back against Martin’s chest and watches him laugh, inverted, with a tiny smile. 

“I know, Martin,” he says, and that’s all he has to say.

* * *

Jon sings.

Martin hadn’t Known that. 

It is never a ballad Jon breathes to life. Never a song Martin knows. They are always small things, half-remembered melodies that drift in and out of voice. They are so quiet that Martin wonders if Jon even knows that he sings; wonders after the last time Jon was close enough to a person - comfortable enough near them, because he is, Martin knows, Jon trusts Martin with his life, and everything before that too - to sing around them. To be himself without thought. 

The first time Martin heard Jon’s voice, singing proper, was their third night in Daisy’s safehouse. Jon was chopping - something, a vegetable Martin had no name for, that he’d had to describe to the grocer to find - and Martin was sitting at the table, his pocketbook open and not-yet-filled before him. He’d frozen still to hear a melody drift over from the cutting board. 

There were no words, of course. And Jon’s sense of rhythm did not extend to chopping; his knife landed to an errant rhythm of his own, which did not match the beat of the music he sang. But it was a light and wafting thing that Martin might have called a lullaby, and even without words, it was beautiful.

A minute passed before Martin realized his cheeks were bright red. He buried his face in his book, and worried only that the interruption might draw Jon’s attention, but the singing continued, and Martin was glad of it.

The second time was on the couch, the two of them tucked beneath the old tartan quilt, Jon curled against Martin’s side and nodding off as he perused an old collection of Dickinson’s. This one was a slower thing, more somber, and it had stolen his breath more effectively than any of her written words. 

The third time, Martin was not so lucky to keep his reaction to himself. They were walking among the hills, and Martin was thinking about his mug with the chipped white handle, and the taste of chamomile and how the mug of tea would keep his hands warm but the touch of Jon’s fingers was somehow always warmer; and suddenly the start of another song he did not know, something merry and quicker, caused him to startle. 

The humming stopped. Jon’s cheeks were not darkened, but Martin imagined he could see steam drifting from them all the same. Dozens of protests crowd his tongue, I _liked it, Jon_ , or _would you keep singing_? but what he manages is, “Did you know you can sing?”

Jon looks bewildered. “No,” he says, so taken aback and confused that Martin laughs. “Did you?”

“I did,” Martin says, and links their arms. “And if you don’t mind me saying, Jon, you’ve got a lovely voice, and I’d – I’d love to hear it again.”

* * *

It is an evening just like the dozen before it. 

This morning Martin had woken to drawn shutters, a lit fire, and a mug of tea that wisped ever-so-faintly at the edges. In the afternoon, Jon had played Beethoven on the old record, and after that switched to Queen as a concession to Martin’s taste; and Jon had ribbed him about it, and Martin had said “Beethoven and Mozart, Jon, _really?_ ” and Jon had shrugged and said, “I’ve nothing to hide from you.” 

Later, after the rhythm of chopping and cooking and sizzling faded from the inside of their home - even as the homely smell of onions and ginger remained - Martin curls up with his notebook and Jon with his little book on Highland cows and Martin leans back, drawing Jon to his chest, running gentle fingers through Jon’s hair as he writes. And so it is quiet and calm for some time, an hour perhaps, before Jon sets aside his book and draws a breath and starts to sing.

For the first time, there are words. A few moments pass, the first few measures drifting by, and as the melody unfolds Martin recognizes the song as _Hey Jude._

His favorite song. He mentioned it to Jon once.

Jon doesn’t sing the whole song, of course. Martin thinks his cheeks would heat a hole right through Martin’s sweater if he tried. But he manages the first verse and a chorus and Martin’s eyes are stinging, his throat choked, and he sets his notebook aside to wipe at his eyes. 

“That’s my favorite,” he manages, feeling a little silly for it.

Jon reaches up, runs a palm gently beneath Martin’s eyes. He never looks away from Martin, not once, and it is intimate in a way that poetry cannot do justice to be so understood, so seen, and so loved. 

“I know,” Jon says. He smiles, a soft and crooked little thing, and Martin’s eyes sting all over again. The panic on Jon’s face just makes Martin laugh. 

When the tears subside, he catches Jon’s hands. Presses a kiss, carefully, to the heel of each palm. “Thank you.”

Jon just smiles again, so crooked the lines around his left eye deepen. He has a dimple, Martin knows. That’s not something Jon knew about himself when he let Martin See him, but Martin takes that little piece of knowledge, and places it carefully with everything else he has learned about Jon, and tucks it close to his heart, where he will never forget. 

“I love you, Martin,” Jon says. His words ring with absolute truth.

Martin stares, and Jon does not look away. It’s never something that’s needed to be said. Martin Saw that love, and it pulled him back from the Lonely, and has kept him far from its precipice ever since. It does not surprise him, but it does make his eyes sting all over again, and he laughs at himself and all the complicated things that come with tea and melodies and absolute truths, and pulls Jon tight to him, brimming over with fondness and affection and an unwavering love of his own, and says, “I know.”


End file.
